Comments on: YOUR CONCERNS ABOUT MUSIC AND THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM

By: Cindy Bruce

Cindy Bruce — Sun, 23 May 2010 11:26:32 +0000

I have been a private music teacher in piano, keyboard and guitar for a long time, have attained a Bachelor of Music degree, a Certificate Teacher of music Australia from AMEB, am also a Licensed Kindermusik educator and am currently studying for a Postgraduate Diploma of Education with a music specialisation . I have also taught primary classroom music for 4 years and Kindergarten.I became redundant when ‘my school’ came online because I was not a registered teacher and due to financial resources. I was replaced with a generalist classroom teacher with no musical experience. I had built up the music resources at the school and now they gather dust. How do I feel?? Disappointed, sorry for the kids who are no longer getting a quality music education just singing and dancing-not that there’s anything wrong with singing and dancing. I believe that the kids deserve and need more than that. I wanted to teach highschool music but unfortunately was never asked, even though I offered an Options session. Afterschool was taken up with sport and more sport.There is a misconception that Queensland offers Primary music in most schools. Music may be being offered, but not by qualified music specialists and definitely not in all schools. A study of the music programs offered,delivered and by whom in Queensland would reveal the true situation.

By: Tracy Wright

Tracy Wright — Sun, 09 May 2010 04:31:43 +0000

I am a pre-service teacher with a music qualification. I have been teaching singing and directing groups such as choirs and musical societies for over 14 years, but am unqualified to teach classroom music. I decided to do my teacher training so that I could share my specialist skills with the children and hopefully inspire in them the love of music that I have. How can I do that in one 30min session a week? (We must remember that that equates to about 15mins by the time they get there and settle for the lesson.) The point I guess I am making is that even with a qualified music teacher there is still not enough time to impart enough knowledge to set the children off on their lifelong musical journey.

By: David Collins-White

David Collins-White — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 01:40:57 +0000

There are music specialists working in public schools. I am one of them. This was achieved with the support of the school principal at Haberfield PS & gaining K-6 accreditation.

Haberfield Music Program K-6

Rationale

We are educating students for a future which we unable to predict. The essential skills they will need are creativity, problem solving & flexibility, all abstract skills.

Music is the only area of human endeavour which operates in both the abstract & non-abstract, & in human development evolves before language or mathematical thinking.

Classroom teachers at Haberfield felt music was the area which required a specialist teacher, while in other Arts areas such as Visual Arts, Drama, Dance and Multi-Media they had teachers with required skills.

Program at Haberfield is:

1. Sequential from K-4 years 30 min per week & in years 5 & 6 1 hour per week.
2. Taught by music specialists.
3. Teachers from K-4 attend music classes for professional development & to incorporate music education into their class programs.
4. Program focuses on skill development & assessment in areas of singing, playing (recorder & percussion), moving/dancing, listening & composing (organising sound).
5. Extra-curricular opportunities provided in Infant, Junior & Senior Choirs (no cost), Junior, intermediate & Senior Bands (fee based), Recorder Ensemble (no cost) & String Ensemble (fee based).
6. Visiting professional musicians offer instrumental lessons on a fee basis to students.

Outcomes:

1. While general teaching standards at Hablerfield have always been high, SMART data for NAPLAN & its predecessor Basis Skills has shown a continuos improvement in all student outcomes during the 7 years the music education program has been operating.
2. Musical assessments have shown students skills continue to improve with younger students achieving higher outcomes each year.
3. Students participation in extra-curricular music activities has grown from 30 students to over 200 out of 600 students at Haberfield. This has resulted in a much more socially harmonious school environment.
David Collins-White
Co-ordinator Creative & Performing Arts, Haberfield Public School.

By: Melissa Scully

Melissa Scully — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 08:56:55 +0000

I am experienced in both aspects of this discussion:
Trained firstly in music education and now currently a primary school teacher.
I do have a few points to discuss. Firstly in making my transition to a primary school I worked as a music specialist in a primary school, and casually in the classroom as a primary teacher. So the point that trained music teachers are not allowed to teach in the primary school is simply not true. In order for you to have a permanent position with the DET as a primary teacher you do need to have approval K-6.
I have now worked solely as a primary teacher for many years.(remembering that I am a music teacher first) I agree with the point that time is an issue. With obesity an issue, 2.5 hrs is devoted to PDHPE, but don’t forget the mandatory teaching of child protection and so on….easily 3hrs a week. Now given the time left 3 subjects. However Creative Arts with 4 of its own subjects simply comes down to 30 mins max each. Now any primary teacher will tell you that 30 mins is not realistic amount of time to teach anything explicitly. Qulaity Teaching requires connectedness, deep understanding and a host of other requirements.
Now here is the bombshell…with all of the mandatory pressures…I simply do not have time to teach the music curriculum as it stands. Not because I dont have the confidence or required training….but because of time.
Now if that is how a music teacher in a primary curriculum is feeling, think about those teachers without the same level of training. We need to give them more support in the classroom first to even get through the day, let alone put more pressures on them.
We need RFF music teachers in every school. My RFF teacher does novel study in all stage 3 classes….not very specialist.

By: Richard Letts

Richard Letts — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:27:47 +0000

Today we have posted on the website the MCA study by Rachel Hocking into the mandatory music instruction included in the university training of people who will become primary school classroom teachers. (It’s in the RESEARCH section.) This is the study referred to above that found that this music instruction occupied on average 17 hours out of the average 1,125 total hours instruction for the degree. A little less time on average is given to instruction in other arts subjects — in that company, believe it or not, music is privileged!

1,108 hours is given in total to instruction in other subjects. Clearly, it is understood that for them 17 hours is not enough to produce a competent teacher.

To offer only this amount of music instruction is some sort of charade. What are we pretending that these people will be able to teach? For seven primary school years? What can be the purpose other than to tick a box? I ask these question while knowing that there are university lecturers who use great ingenuity in bringing something worthwhile to their students — but the situation is not fair for them either.

There are studies showing that the effect on the students of so little music instruction can be to convince them of their own incompetence and rob them of any confidence, however unjustifiable, they might have had in introducing music activities in class. Without confidence, they may be inclined to quietly omit music, even where as in NSW, it is a mandatory part of the curriculum.

A solution, as is apparent from the study, is for the accreditation bodies to insist upon an adequate level of competence in music and music teaching as a condition of accreditation and therefore employment.

A more credible solution is to employ music specialists to teach music in primary schools, preferably in collaboration with well-prepared classroom teachers.

By: Nicole Alexander

Nicole Alexander — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:04:00 +0000

I disagree with people such as MGL who say that music isn’t valued in the Australian culture, because of examples from my own life. For example, evey Saturday I go to a pub and play old-timey music with up to 30 other people from all walks of life. Look at attendence at folk festivals and concerts. I think what music education has to do is recognize different styles of music learning (aural, kinaesthetic, visual) and celebrate music as a part of daily life rather than a rareified subject. I see the problem as one of commodification where our culture sees most people as consumers rather than producers of music.

By: Carmel Costa

Carmel Costa — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:41:05 +0000

I was primary trained, and then added extra study, to work as a music specialist in primary schools.
This comment is anecdotal and is in support of making singing the basis of music learning for all children.
I worked in a country town in the 1960’s era and gave music lessons to the children at three of the town’s primary schools.
There had been no music programs at the schools before this.
When I left, after two years, the students had progressed from no music experience, to enthusiastic community singing programs, class sight singing[through the use of solfa,pitching keys with a tuning fork]
Reading, and successfully playing from, multi – instrument percussion scores and commencing, from year three up, recorder consort groups.
For the first six months all music was associated with singing before moving gradually towards the basic instrumental programs using percussion and recorders.
The hardest part of the task was working towards developing support from the classroom teachers who gradually came on board with my program when they saw that the children enjoyed, and were benefiting from their participation in music.
I have used this approach at any school in which I have worked.
I have been at my present school for many years and have been able to add a Choir program for students from years three to six. The Choir membership includes at least a third of the boys from these levels. It is great to hear children sing in the playground.
Singing is for everyone….the launching pad for playing , creating, dancing, dramatising, alone or with others.

By: Roslyn Happ

Roslyn Happ — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:28:38 +0000

The cultural wall which prevents music from being done well in many classrooms relates more to insecurity and lack of confidence than anything. I am a great believer in building strong foundations for music early. To do this, it is essential that all teachers of young children actually reach a confident level of singing, moving and playing. They should not be allowed to qualify without it. In the short courses I run in primary schools, I have never found a child who cannot sing in tune and keep in time with a bit of individual help. Trainee teachers need to be given that opportunity too. look at ‘The Choir of Hard Knocks’. Anyone can do it. Increasing the hours of training for preservice teachers is important, but more important is deciding on ‘what is actually required’ of them. Some will require ‘remedial help’ to get to that level. Some will have to do a lot of work outside of their ‘face to face’ music instruction in order to reach the required standard. But let’s first set that standard. It doesn’t have to be arduous. It could be a lot of fun. I run short programmes in primary schools in which I work with the class teachers and children together, usually three classes at a time for singing and movement. From this, teachers learn the basic principles which enable the children to sing in tune and develop excellent listening skills. I then give remedial help to the children who are not managing to sing in tune or move in time. It doesn’t usually take much to see a huge improvement. At the end of the six week course, we have a concert in which the children have learnt numerous songs, created choreographies etc. After a couple of these courses, very few children are singing out of tune and their listening skills and musicality have improved immensely. Why not do this with our preservice teachers. There is nothing like ‘doing it’ to build confidence.
Go for it … set the standard and if a pre-service teacher has to keep going to remedial classes for months …. so be it. They will get there eventually and our children will benefit from having teachers who are not scared to sing and move and dance. From this foundation in the early grade classrooms, everything follows. Standards can be set higher with instrumental learning. Music specialists don’t have to teach the basics. The musical life of the school and the community can blossom. So I say, let’s be clear, let’s decide on that standard. Raise the bar.

By: MGL

MGL — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:42:26 +0000

Do Australian’s (beyond our body of believers who know and value the benefit of music education) really care about music?

Unfortunately i think we are up against a huge cultural wall where singing and music isn’t really seen as being important in our culture.

To get the funding needed to compare with the Finnish and Venezuelen systems or for it to become a key component of the National Curriculum we need a real change in how Australians view music and it’s importance.

By: Francis Fong

Francis Fong — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:14:47 +0000

My concern about a national music curriculum is on its acceptance. I have witnessed (and experienced) the pain of putting together the Western Australian WACE Music Course. A lot of compromise (sometimes more political than educational) had to be made in order to receive support from teachers. WA now has a music syllabus that is quite different from those in other states. It will be an extremely difficult task for the national task force to draft a senior secondary music curriculum that is acceptable by teachers nationally. Good luck!